Should Rangers fans accept Mark Burchill’s apology over comments made about Nathan Oduwa?

NO, writes Gary Keown.

MARK BURCHILL, the Livingston manager, has said sorry to Rangers and their supporters for the unfortunate use of “clumsy words” during the row which escalated following a dreadful tackle from Kieran Gibbons on Nathan Oduwa in Tuesday night’s Petrofac Training Cup quarter-final at Ibrox.

Issuing an apology is the right thing to do in PR terms, no doubt, but he would have been better sticking to his guns.

Burchill said what he said. The points he made during a radio interview were perfectly clear. It is hard to see how they could be open to misinterpretation.

If he thinks Gibbons should be given an easier time because he is a Scottish player playing in Scotland while Oduwa is an Englishman only in this country on a short-term loan, he is perfectly free to state that opinion.

It is, of course, a view that is extremely easy to disagree with, considering Gibbons could well have broken Oduwa’s ankle. A shocking tackle is a shocking tackle, no matter who commits it, and criticism in a public forum is only to be expected.

Burchill has also asked for understanding that Gibbons has only played 12 senior matches and has been hung out to dry. Gibbons is 20 years of age. He is not a child. He must accept the flak.

There are too many of these lily-livered apologies in the world these days, too many public figures backtracking because of pressure, too many pleas for people to be treated with kid gloves.

Burchill made the comments. Gibbons made the tackle. These are issues that should not be whitewashed and there is not a hope in hell of Rangers fans letting bygones be bygones.

YES, writes Graeme Macpherson

MARK BURCHILL put his foot in it with his comments about Nathan Oduwa, but it did seem more clumsy than deliberately contentious.

The idea that a player deserves fairer treatment than another simply because of his nationality is obviously a nonsense and the Livingston manager got himself in a helluva tangle trying to justify why Kieran Gibbons deserved to be sheltered from criticism just because he is Scottish and Oduwa isn’t.

It wasn’t the shrewdest thing to say on live radio, but it doesn’t make Burchill the next Alf Garnett. He was doing what a lot of managers do in trying to protect a player who had come in for a lot of deserved stick for the tackle he made on Oduwa early in Tuesday night’s game at Ibrox.

However, the day a manager throws one of his own players under a bus will also be the day hell freezes over. Protecting their own, even when they’ve been in the wrong, is what they always do.

Burchill seemed to appreciate immediately that he had spoken out of turn and quickly apologised for it. As a former Celtic player, he was never likely to be a favourite of the Rangers fans to begin with, but this isn’t worth them getting hot and bothered about. Time to accept the apology and move on.